A common question asked of writers is, "So, where do your story ideas come from?" Stephen King answered the question this way: "I get my ideas from everywhere. ... 'What if' is always the key question."
I wholeheartedly agree. Ideas come winging at me like missiles from anywhere and everywhere—overheard snippets of conversations, newspaper items, dreams, pretty much anything. Story prompts suggested online and in writing workshops provide fodder for thought, as well. I was even inspired to write a story about sea monsters while watching a Geico commercial. It happens.
There are so many ideas that I couldn't possibly write all the stories that occur to me. I have notes everywhere, jotted in moments of hot inspiration. Post-It notes are plastered all over my desk. Moleskine notebooks littered with scribblings and random thoughts (many now indecipherable—what the hell was I thinking?).
Writer's block? What's that? I've found my own experiences and observations spark stronger imagination and story ideas. The trick is just being open to whatever occurs to me, and then asking that magic question, What if?
Case in point is my short story "Another Highway Fatality" (originally published in Future Mysteries Anthology Magazine and subsequently added to my short story collection, Broken: Stories of Damaged Psyches). The story originated years ago when a coworker told me she believed she'd been stalked while driving after midnight in rural New Jersey.
She was returning with her husband from a weekend trip to the Jersey shore. She drove while her husband slept in the back seat. On the dark back roads of New Jersey, a car raced up from behind, high beams in her rearview mirror blinding her, and then stayed behind her for miles. She slowed, hoping the person would pass. No, the car kept pace behind her. Miles later, with the car still following, she was so freaked out that she woke her husband. When he sat up in the back seat and looked out the rearview window, the car behind them suddenly accelerated, passed their car, and sped away. They could not see, much less recognize, the driver.
She assumed, when her "stalker" realized she was not alone, that he was no longer interested in her and hurried away. But was her imagination just working overtime, or was she genuinely in danger? Would the car have eventually forced her off the road? If so, what then?
On hearing her story, I recognized a "what-if" story buried there, one involving fear, perception, and paranoia, what is real and what might not be real. I enjoy reading and writing psychological horror and suspense, and the story quickly took shape in my mind with a psychological slant, focusing on a disturbed central character (a damaged psyche). Of course, my story ends far darker than my coworker's story—no happy ending here! What I find fascinating is that someone else hearing my coworker's experience would likely develop a storyline far different from the one I developed.
Story ideas are funny that way.
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